WTF!? News

Man survives trip into wood chipper

by Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

(NEWSER) – Frank Arce of Longview, Washington, has a broken pelvis, broken leg, seven broken ribs, a shattered ankle, a bruised liver, a collapsed lung, and assorted other injuries—but he went into a wood chipper-like machine last week and lived to tell the tale. The wood products worker's 10 seconds of hell began when a log got stuck inside the chamber that fed the machine, called a hopper, on the evening of Jan. 23 at Swanson Bark & Wood Products. Workers shut down the machine before he climbed into the hopper remove the jam. What happened next is somewhat unclear, and under investigation. The 23-year-old tells theDaily News that "apparently the piece (of machinery) I was standing next to was on a different circuit," and somehow started back up again, sucking him from the hopper into the "porcupine."